A little background on the evolution of this bass and how I came to conceive of it might be useful (this might end up kinda long .. sorry ..) ...
I guess it all starts back in '93/94 when I saw the first Voodoo bass. Serious, serious GAS. But Dingwalls were way out of my price range and so I played other basses. Fender, Carvin, Yamaha, Ibanez, Music Man, Ken Smith. Which brings me to to April of 2004, when I realized that I really preferred playing; that the sound and style I heard in my head really came out of my fingers best when I played fretless.
So I sold the Ken Smith, did a 3 way trade on TB, in order to end up with this Benavente:
http://www.gigafiles.co.uk/files/737/benaventefretless1.JPG
.. all the while starting to think how cool it would be to have a fretless Dingwall. So I played the Bene a'while, and then had the opportunity to do another trade for this Prima:
http://www.gigafiles.co.uk/files/737/Prima1.jpg
.. which I played for a couple months, coming to the conclusion that a fretless Dingwall would be really cool.
So I posted a Want to Buy on TB in Jan of '03 and was kindly informed by FCM3 that there were (at that time) only around 3 Dingwall fretless in existence. Contacted Barry at Dingwall and found out that the price and build time were out of my reach at the time. Shortly after this, Devilman here on TB contacted me with the information that he had been the orginal owner of the Prima I had traded for, and had regretted ever letting it get away.
We worked a deal for a brand new ABII and some cash for the Prima, this ABII as a matter of fact:
http://www.gigafiles.co.uk/files/737/frontpersp.jpg
.. and I went happily on my Dingwall-playin' days - now entirely convinced that a fretless Dingwall would be the coolest thing I could ever own in the bass world. Except I really couldn't order a Dingwall fretless, and it sure didn't look like any were gonna end up on the market any time soon.
So I started thinking about having a bass built at one of the lower-priced luthiers (Benavente, Nordstrand, Stambaugh, etc ... all being, like Dingwall, way out of my price range, if they'd even been willing to build a multi-scale intsrument - based off standard instrument prices, I never bothered them to find out). Which finally brought me to ... Dave Pushic.
I read every post on TB I could find, looked at his site, compared the instruments he'd built (and been slammed for) in the past to the most recent work he was turning out. During this time, I kept reading about Knuckle basses and how amazing the B-string was on a 39" scale instrument. And I came to the conclusion that if I was going to have a multi-scale fretless built, why stick to standards. I've been convinced for a long time that the longer the B, the better, and I also, after playing the 2 Dingwalls for a period of time, came to the conclusion that I preferred the sound of a 35" G-string.
So I contacted Dave and proposed a bass to him. Single-cut body shape, fretless, multi-scale running 35" G - 38" B.
He refused.
I begged, and pointed out that it was a fretless instrument, not fretted and that wouldn't be all that more difficult to build than a standard instrument.
He relented.
We agreed on a specs re. hardware and electronics, general body shape and wood choices and so on April 1, 2005 I sent him a deposit. A short while later, I found this piece of redwood on eBay and it was purchased and sent to Dave:
http://www.gigafiles.co.uk/files/737/Wood.jpg
.. I started playing with body shapes, drawing heavily on the basses I'd loved playing in the past looking at pictures and pictures of basses and trying to decide what visual factors drew me to those particular instruments.
Time went on, I was busy, Dave was busy, I was broke, Dave was busy, had health problems. While we stayed very loosely in touch, I had promised Dave that I would not push him, rush him, or harass him in any way. And so if was that on March 28 of this year, Dave contacted me and said he was ready to start working on my project, and did I have an idea for the body shape. He sent a long several sketches of shapes that he came up with while trying to decide how to place the pups. I spent some time in Photoshop and finally came up with this (some specs changed very slightly during the build):
http://www.gigafiles.co.uk/files/737/drawing.jpg
Dave agreed to that body shape, and after a number of emails over several weeks, this is what we ended up with for specs:
35" - 38" multi-scale fretless.
Body - wenge core with redwood top and back caps.
Neck - bubinga/wenge/maple/wenge/bubinga
Fretboard - undecided
Pups - Bartolini CBC (6-string version)
Pre - 18v Aguilar OBP-3 vol/vol/bass/mid/treble w/coil tap switches.
Bridge - Hipshot triple lock
Tuners - Gotoh
Dunlop recessed strap locks.
Neutrik jack
The fretboard was a problem. I had originally considered using an impregnated fretboard from Gallery, but Dave was adamantly opposed to using any kind of treated wood on the instrument. He proposed using ebony, but I'm really not a fan of ebony. In searching for a wood to use instead, came across Ipe. It's qualities seemed perfect for this bass, especially as my string choices at these lengths were somewhat limited. Dave agreed to using Ipe on June 13th, nailing down the final choice left to make outside of which side of the redwood to use for the top and back. This was my final choice:
http://www.gigafiles.co.uk/files/737/Woodchoice-top.jpg
Then it was all over but the waiting ... As we got closer to completion, I began looking to sell the ABII to make the final payment due on the DP. I found Reagan (RockstarBassist) here on TB who was looking to sell a bass to purchase a Dingwall. He was willing to wait several weeks for Dave to finish my build, and then once it was ready, he received an extremely nice ABII via FedEx and I sent Dave the balance due.
On October 17th, this is what arrived via UPS:
http://www.gigafiles.co.uk/files/737/Front-all.jpg
http://www.gigafiles.co.uk/files/737/Front-body.jpg
http://www.gigafiles.co.uk/files/737/Back-all.jpg
http://www.gigafiles.co.uk/files/737/Back-body.jpg
http://www.gigafiles.co.uk/files/737/Headstock-front.jpg
http://www.gigafiles.co.uk/files/737/Headstock-back.jpg
The bass is stunning in person. It's almost exactly what I envisioned. The pictures pretty much speak for themselves. The neck is interesting, and the more I play it, the more I like it. As other reviews have noted, it's very easy playing and the constant thickness/ D-shape is very comfortable and really does force you to play with better fretting-hand technique. The back is very smooth, much less glossy than the front or back. It doesn't feel, or even feel capable of every becoming sticky. Cavities are routed well, joints are solid and have no spaces or gaps.
Okay,efore I go on though, I've got to mention the sound. Unplugged, it's loud. Really loud for an electric instrument. Bright, solid, defined, ringing, loud. Individual notes on the B-string are articulate and deep. Mwah for days, weeks, months, I dunno, I put the bass away and I swear I can hear it in it's gig bag, late at night going 'mwaaaaahhhhhhhhh', all by itself.
Plugged in? Part of why it's taken a while to post this is that I've only had a chance to run it through my full rig (GK 1001 RBII, 2 - GK 4x10 cabs) and that was with a drummer only. But plugged in, it's quite simply exactly the sound I've always heard in my head but never been able to quite get out. In passive, it's an extremely woody sounding bass, maybe like the longest sustaining acoustic bass I've every heard. Switch in the pre and sound possibilities seem endless. More bass than I know what to do with, gobs of midrange, clear, smooth, highs. I'm not really sure how to describe the sound, honestly. I'm actually reminded of the scene in Contact where Jody Foster, overwhelmed by what she sees says "they should have sent a poet".
Here, it sounds like this - it sounds like the biggest bestest Dingwall fretless I never heard ...
To get close to wrapping this thing up, I can't begin to describe how pleased I am with this bass. The quality of build is far superior to what I was prepared to accept (providing the sound and playabilty where there), and the sound and playabilty are most definitely "there". Is there anything wrong with the bass? Well, I can really, really nitpick and state that the screws holding the control cavity in aren't evenly countersunk and several stick up higher than the others (as soon as I get time and access to a drill and bits, that's fixed) and that there iss a small crack in one of the corners, but it's hardly visible and certainly doesn't affect function in any way, both visible here:
http://www.gigafiles.co.uk/files/737/Battery Cover.jpg
And I can also point out that Dave struggled somewhat with the nut/tuners/headstock-neck joint, and might possibly have figured out a slightly cleaner way to get it all to work together than this:
http://www.gigafiles.co.uk/files/737/Headstock-side.jpg
.. but it's barely visible (I can't see it when I play it) and doesn't seem to have affected stability in any way.
And I can mention that the finish isn't absolutely perfect like a Ritter is perfect, or even like a Norstrand is perfect. But it's really good, a little bit of roughness if you search for it. But no brush strokes or streaks or swirls or scratches or stains.
And I guess I can say that I expected it to be more ... well, red. It's redwood, and in my head, I saw more red. But I like the understated color the more I look at it, almost like redwood with a very light coffee stain. And to be honest, Dave and I never discussed the actual color of the bass, or how the finish might effect it, and when it all comes down to it, it's ultimately irrelevant - the bass is beautiful the way it is, and is built as well as I could have hoped it would have been.
Bottom line, while it took forever and isn't as perfectly built as a bass costing 3-5 times more (which is where all other quotes were), it's far superior to what I expected and quite literally exceeds all my expectations.
If I've left anything out ... LMAO .. feel free to ask. But bottom, bottom line, Dave got it right and I couldn't be more pleased.
Thanks for reading,
Tony
Edited 12/04 for broken links to pics.
I guess it all starts back in '93/94 when I saw the first Voodoo bass. Serious, serious GAS. But Dingwalls were way out of my price range and so I played other basses. Fender, Carvin, Yamaha, Ibanez, Music Man, Ken Smith. Which brings me to to April of 2004, when I realized that I really preferred playing; that the sound and style I heard in my head really came out of my fingers best when I played fretless.
So I sold the Ken Smith, did a 3 way trade on TB, in order to end up with this Benavente:
http://www.gigafiles.co.uk/files/737/benaventefretless1.JPG
.. all the while starting to think how cool it would be to have a fretless Dingwall. So I played the Bene a'while, and then had the opportunity to do another trade for this Prima:
http://www.gigafiles.co.uk/files/737/Prima1.jpg
.. which I played for a couple months, coming to the conclusion that a fretless Dingwall would be really cool.
So I posted a Want to Buy on TB in Jan of '03 and was kindly informed by FCM3 that there were (at that time) only around 3 Dingwall fretless in existence. Contacted Barry at Dingwall and found out that the price and build time were out of my reach at the time. Shortly after this, Devilman here on TB contacted me with the information that he had been the orginal owner of the Prima I had traded for, and had regretted ever letting it get away.
We worked a deal for a brand new ABII and some cash for the Prima, this ABII as a matter of fact:
http://www.gigafiles.co.uk/files/737/frontpersp.jpg
.. and I went happily on my Dingwall-playin' days - now entirely convinced that a fretless Dingwall would be the coolest thing I could ever own in the bass world. Except I really couldn't order a Dingwall fretless, and it sure didn't look like any were gonna end up on the market any time soon.
So I started thinking about having a bass built at one of the lower-priced luthiers (Benavente, Nordstrand, Stambaugh, etc ... all being, like Dingwall, way out of my price range, if they'd even been willing to build a multi-scale intsrument - based off standard instrument prices, I never bothered them to find out). Which finally brought me to ... Dave Pushic.
I read every post on TB I could find, looked at his site, compared the instruments he'd built (and been slammed for) in the past to the most recent work he was turning out. During this time, I kept reading about Knuckle basses and how amazing the B-string was on a 39" scale instrument. And I came to the conclusion that if I was going to have a multi-scale fretless built, why stick to standards. I've been convinced for a long time that the longer the B, the better, and I also, after playing the 2 Dingwalls for a period of time, came to the conclusion that I preferred the sound of a 35" G-string.
So I contacted Dave and proposed a bass to him. Single-cut body shape, fretless, multi-scale running 35" G - 38" B.
He refused.
I begged, and pointed out that it was a fretless instrument, not fretted and that wouldn't be all that more difficult to build than a standard instrument.
He relented.
We agreed on a specs re. hardware and electronics, general body shape and wood choices and so on April 1, 2005 I sent him a deposit. A short while later, I found this piece of redwood on eBay and it was purchased and sent to Dave:
http://www.gigafiles.co.uk/files/737/Wood.jpg
.. I started playing with body shapes, drawing heavily on the basses I'd loved playing in the past looking at pictures and pictures of basses and trying to decide what visual factors drew me to those particular instruments.
Time went on, I was busy, Dave was busy, I was broke, Dave was busy, had health problems. While we stayed very loosely in touch, I had promised Dave that I would not push him, rush him, or harass him in any way. And so if was that on March 28 of this year, Dave contacted me and said he was ready to start working on my project, and did I have an idea for the body shape. He sent a long several sketches of shapes that he came up with while trying to decide how to place the pups. I spent some time in Photoshop and finally came up with this (some specs changed very slightly during the build):
http://www.gigafiles.co.uk/files/737/drawing.jpg
Dave agreed to that body shape, and after a number of emails over several weeks, this is what we ended up with for specs:
35" - 38" multi-scale fretless.
Body - wenge core with redwood top and back caps.
Neck - bubinga/wenge/maple/wenge/bubinga
Fretboard - undecided
Pups - Bartolini CBC (6-string version)
Pre - 18v Aguilar OBP-3 vol/vol/bass/mid/treble w/coil tap switches.
Bridge - Hipshot triple lock
Tuners - Gotoh
Dunlop recessed strap locks.
Neutrik jack
The fretboard was a problem. I had originally considered using an impregnated fretboard from Gallery, but Dave was adamantly opposed to using any kind of treated wood on the instrument. He proposed using ebony, but I'm really not a fan of ebony. In searching for a wood to use instead, came across Ipe. It's qualities seemed perfect for this bass, especially as my string choices at these lengths were somewhat limited. Dave agreed to using Ipe on June 13th, nailing down the final choice left to make outside of which side of the redwood to use for the top and back. This was my final choice:
http://www.gigafiles.co.uk/files/737/Woodchoice-top.jpg
Then it was all over but the waiting ... As we got closer to completion, I began looking to sell the ABII to make the final payment due on the DP. I found Reagan (RockstarBassist) here on TB who was looking to sell a bass to purchase a Dingwall. He was willing to wait several weeks for Dave to finish my build, and then once it was ready, he received an extremely nice ABII via FedEx and I sent Dave the balance due.
On October 17th, this is what arrived via UPS:
http://www.gigafiles.co.uk/files/737/Front-all.jpg
http://www.gigafiles.co.uk/files/737/Front-body.jpg
http://www.gigafiles.co.uk/files/737/Back-all.jpg
http://www.gigafiles.co.uk/files/737/Back-body.jpg
http://www.gigafiles.co.uk/files/737/Headstock-front.jpg
http://www.gigafiles.co.uk/files/737/Headstock-back.jpg
The bass is stunning in person. It's almost exactly what I envisioned. The pictures pretty much speak for themselves. The neck is interesting, and the more I play it, the more I like it. As other reviews have noted, it's very easy playing and the constant thickness/ D-shape is very comfortable and really does force you to play with better fretting-hand technique. The back is very smooth, much less glossy than the front or back. It doesn't feel, or even feel capable of every becoming sticky. Cavities are routed well, joints are solid and have no spaces or gaps.
Okay,efore I go on though, I've got to mention the sound. Unplugged, it's loud. Really loud for an electric instrument. Bright, solid, defined, ringing, loud. Individual notes on the B-string are articulate and deep. Mwah for days, weeks, months, I dunno, I put the bass away and I swear I can hear it in it's gig bag, late at night going 'mwaaaaahhhhhhhhh', all by itself.
Plugged in? Part of why it's taken a while to post this is that I've only had a chance to run it through my full rig (GK 1001 RBII, 2 - GK 4x10 cabs) and that was with a drummer only. But plugged in, it's quite simply exactly the sound I've always heard in my head but never been able to quite get out. In passive, it's an extremely woody sounding bass, maybe like the longest sustaining acoustic bass I've every heard. Switch in the pre and sound possibilities seem endless. More bass than I know what to do with, gobs of midrange, clear, smooth, highs. I'm not really sure how to describe the sound, honestly. I'm actually reminded of the scene in Contact where Jody Foster, overwhelmed by what she sees says "they should have sent a poet".
Here, it sounds like this - it sounds like the biggest bestest Dingwall fretless I never heard ...
To get close to wrapping this thing up, I can't begin to describe how pleased I am with this bass. The quality of build is far superior to what I was prepared to accept (providing the sound and playabilty where there), and the sound and playabilty are most definitely "there". Is there anything wrong with the bass? Well, I can really, really nitpick and state that the screws holding the control cavity in aren't evenly countersunk and several stick up higher than the others (as soon as I get time and access to a drill and bits, that's fixed) and that there iss a small crack in one of the corners, but it's hardly visible and certainly doesn't affect function in any way, both visible here:
http://www.gigafiles.co.uk/files/737/Battery Cover.jpg
And I can also point out that Dave struggled somewhat with the nut/tuners/headstock-neck joint, and might possibly have figured out a slightly cleaner way to get it all to work together than this:
http://www.gigafiles.co.uk/files/737/Headstock-side.jpg
.. but it's barely visible (I can't see it when I play it) and doesn't seem to have affected stability in any way.
And I can mention that the finish isn't absolutely perfect like a Ritter is perfect, or even like a Norstrand is perfect. But it's really good, a little bit of roughness if you search for it. But no brush strokes or streaks or swirls or scratches or stains.
And I guess I can say that I expected it to be more ... well, red. It's redwood, and in my head, I saw more red. But I like the understated color the more I look at it, almost like redwood with a very light coffee stain. And to be honest, Dave and I never discussed the actual color of the bass, or how the finish might effect it, and when it all comes down to it, it's ultimately irrelevant - the bass is beautiful the way it is, and is built as well as I could have hoped it would have been.
Bottom line, while it took forever and isn't as perfectly built as a bass costing 3-5 times more (which is where all other quotes were), it's far superior to what I expected and quite literally exceeds all my expectations.
If I've left anything out ... LMAO .. feel free to ask. But bottom, bottom line, Dave got it right and I couldn't be more pleased.
Thanks for reading,
Tony
Edited 12/04 for broken links to pics.
